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Greenwashing

We get a lot of greenwashing in our marketing, whether it's for shampooing or buildings...

 

On veut du green green green green green green washing

On veut des tours d’avion, des airbus, du diesel
Des mandarines toutes les saisons, des grands voyages dans le ciel
Du high tech à la maison, de la nouvelle technologie
On veut pouvoir dire pardon et soulager son esprit

On veut d’la viande d’Argentine, d’la bidoche à tous les repas
De la world food dans la cuisine, on veut du sucre, on veut du gras
On veut moins cher, on veut meilleur, on veut toujours un peu d’ailleurs
On veut la mer, on veut l’été même en hiver on veut bronzer

Refrain

On veut du green green green green green green washing
C’est nous les as, les pinocchios du marketing
On veut du green green green green green green washing

On cache les galets sous le sable, on veut des plages de sable blanc
Du réseau pour nos portables, on voudrait quatre barres tout le temps
Des orgies raisonnables, des grands échangeurs de béton
Et des amis toujours joignables, on veut des baleines et du thon

Refrain

On veut de l’eau toujours qui coule et des rides un peu moins creusées
On veut de la jeunesse en poudre et puis de la neige en été
Des grands buildings sous le soleil, des monuments pharaoniques
On veut partout partout pareil, de la wifi, du numérique

On veut du green green green green green green washing
C’est nous les as, les pinocchios du marketing
On veut du green green green green green green washing
On veut du green green green green green green washing

On veut des lessives sans phosphates, des shampoings tout organiques
Et des forêts pour nos 4x4, du charbon dans nos cosmétiques
Des slogans abusifs, plus blanc que blanc, plus vert que vert
Mascarade écologique pendant qu’on s’shoote au nucléaire

On veut du green green green green green green washing
On veut du green green green green green green washing
On veut pouvoir dire pardon et soulager son esprit
On veut du green green green green green green washing
On veut la mer, on veut l’été même en hiver on veut bronzer
On veut du green green green green green green washing
On veut des baleines et du thon
On veut du green green green green green green washing
C’est nous les as
On veut du green green green green green green washing

meilleurs voeux

It's Sam's 12th birthday today. So naturally, we wanted to get him some bonbons and a best-seller. 

pipi room

They know I'm not very good at speaking French. So they give me little bits of English to help.

WC, doobla-veh-seh, is of course familiar. But I had not seen pipi room before.

There's all sorts of linguistic swaps going on. Pipi As the dictionary has it,

pee

1788, "to urinate," euphemistic abbreviation of piss. Noun meaning "act of urination" is attested from 1902. Reduplicated form pee-pee is attested from 1923.

and here's another sign that Sam found for me

Super Crack

Help me out someone...

Supercrack. Supercrack?

If it was spelt differently I'd assume it was something to do with the French verb craquer, to make a cracking noise. As in, Les morceaux de viande craquaient avec un bruit effroyable.

From the -ck ending it looks like it's meant to be an English word.

Bit which kind of crack? A gap or fissure of some kind? The drug? Certainly the dog looks addicted to the stuff...

So* Toulouse

Look what the ad man* has come up with for Toulouse: sotoulouse.com

I especially like that asterisk. Asterisks are all over the place, aren't they? - they look like stars, like the sun, like something stretching out from the centre and influencing all sorts of other things, like something a bit exciting, but also cute...

But, here it is also just a standard asterisk - with that very small and lonely vertical "Tellement", explaining to any puzzled non-English speaker what "So" means!

Then again, someone pointed out that "so" isn't an ideal word. There is so, as in "so, what's so good about that?". The asterisk would then be *et... alors?

*L.A.Solution - "Marketing territorial" - that's another French "ing"-word - marketing.

Quick, get me out of here!

It's not the food I mind so much as the language. It's not French, it's not English - it's some fast food no-man's-land in between.
The first hint of trouble is the name, Quick. It's a fast food chain very much like Macdo, with the same linguistic booby-traps set all over. The next clue is Drive:

How do you say that in French, drive? I don't honestly know. In all my years in French lessons at Westminster City School I don't remember ever being taught how to say that. (Not that I remember much actually from all those years of French lessons.)

It's a French chain. According to wikipedia, it's actually nationalised by the French government!

What's all this then?

That's "du fun servi sur un plateau". The milkshake cup says "Milk Shake your body" and the softy cup says "Nice cream"!

But never mind all these Anglicisms and bad puns. More important: how, when you're ordering, do you say these words? How do you say milkshake in a French way? Sam reliably informs me it's "meelk-shek". And how about bacon?

The word bacon in English I pronounce like everyone else, with a "bay" and an unstressed o, called a "schwa" and written [ə]. According to French rules of pronunciation it should be bacon, with "ba" as in the English word "bat" and that kind of nasal "on" that the French have. But you don't say it like that in Quick or Macdo. You say "beiconne", with the first syllable as in berry and the second like in our "con man". 


Do you see what I mean? And that's just one word! There's a whole minefield of these things in there:

• the Cheeseburger
• the Suprême Cheese
• the Quick'n Toast
• the Giant
• the Long Chicken
• the Long Chicken Barbecue Bacon
• the Long Bacon
• the Long Fish

- and that's just the burgers! Quick! Get me out of here!